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Harold Farb, the bigger-than-life Houston developer who transformed the city's landscape with more than 30,000 apartments, died Tuesday at his River Oaks home of an apparent heart attack.

He was 83.

Farb amassed a fortune by developing reasonably priced complexes with the latest features. He was landlord to more than 1 million people in a career than spanned more than 50 years.

"He was someone who built — I guess in Texas it's OK to use the word — an 'empire' and he did it the old fashioned way with hard work," said former Texas Gov. Mark White, a close friend.

"He was king of the apartment business," Houston developer and friend Marvin Finger said Tuesday. "He was optimistic and hard-working to the end."

Farb, who was born in Galveston but moved to Houston with his family when he was six months old, broke into the real estate business under the tutelage of his father, Albert Farb.

The elder Farb operated a drugstore and a nearby movie house — the Rainbow Theater — on West Dallas during the 1930s. He added the Sunset Theater at Chenevert and McGowan in 1940.

Friends believe Farb's love of entertainment came from hanging around the theaters. Once he became a successful developer, he financed five albums of himself singing show tunes and built a posh supper club called the Carlyle in the early 1980s to have a place to sing. He favored Gershwin and Cole Porter tunes.

Of his singing, he once told Forbes magazine, "You reach a stage when, if you don't have fun, what has it all been for?"

After graduating from Austin High School in the early 1940s, Farb was drafted into the the U.S. Army and served in Europe under General George S. Patton. While overseas, the theaters were sold and the Farbs began investing in real estate.

By 1953, Harold Farb established his own development business, Finger said, and never looked back.

Farb's first project was a 20-unit complex in the Montrose area at 1811 Richmond at Woodhead.

By the 1970s and well into the 1980's, Farb had become the leader of the apartment development business, Finger said.

"I remember that he really had a brand name in Houston," he said.

The logo for the Farb Cos. — a silhouette of a businessman holding a rolled-up set of architectural plans — was seen throughout town.

Farb also was the first in Houston to move away from complexes of 20 to 50 units common after World War II to larger complexes, Finger said.

Farb built apartments designed to attract upscale apartment dwellers who wanted to live near the Galleria, Hobby Airport and other growth areas in '70s-era Houston.

Finger noted that Farb was also the first developer in town to bring amenities like exercise rooms and gathering places for those in the community. He also was the first to embellish landscaping around large courtyards, Finger said.

But what truly set Farb apart from his rivals was the size of his developments, said Jenard Gross, a self-described friendly competitor with Farb.

When Gross built a 200-unit apartment building on Broadway Street near Hobby Airport, Farb bought up all the land around Gross' building and developed a 2,000-unit complex.

"I wouldn't have had the guts to build that many units," Gross said. "I thought that he would be overbuilding in the market, but he had the vision to see that wasn't the case."

His distinctive apartment complexes with courtyards and French and Italian architecture accents set a new standard for leased living quarters.

"He believed in building a better project: well landscaped and well maintained so that anyone who rented at a Farb project got extra features and benefits, and that's why he was so successful," said Houston retail developer/broker Ed Wulfe.

Said Shad Bogany, owner of ERA Bogany Properties and host of the Real Estate Corner radio show on KCOH: "It was a status thing. You were on the upswing if you lived in a Harold Farb apartment. Growing up in Houston, my mom always told me that one day we were going to be able to afford to live in a Harold Farb apartment."

Today, many apartments originally developed by Farb are homes for newly-arrived immigrants needing entry-level work and housing.

"By developing Southwest Houston, Harold Farb created the means by which hard-working people could gain a foothold in our region and help us build this great city," said Angela Blanchard, president and CEO of Neighborhood Centers Inc., a nonprofit agency building a community center near Farb-built complexes in the Gulfton area.

In 1977, Farb married the former Carolyn Shulman and the couple were fixtures on the city's cafe society circuit. The couple divorced in a 1983 trial that made headlines.

Carolyn had signed a prenuptial agreement limiting her property settlement to around $1 million. But at the time it was signed, the state constitution did not allow prenuptial agreements. The couple reached an out-of-court settlement one day after testimony started and Carolyn received a reported $20 million property settlement.

"Of course, we had our moments during the divorce, but we remained friends," Carolyn Farb said. "He was an original — he was innovative, a risk-taker and most of all, an honorable man. I never heard him speak ill of anybody."

In 1984, Forbes magazine named Farb among the 400 richest people in America. In addition to the Carlyle, he published Ultra magazine, a lifestyle monthly aimed at high income readers.

But like a lot of Houstonians, Farb got caught in the oil crunch of the mid-1980s. His 46-story San Felipe Plaza office tower lost $1 million a month in the realty bust in the 1980s, and he reorganized some of his apartment projects in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the 1990s.

But he paid off all his debts and when the new century dawned, he was still going strong, developing a $25 million complex in Kingwood called the Paramount.

In the mid-1990s, Farb retired, but it only lasted 15 months, because he couldn't stand the inactivity. "I am going to die in this business," he said then.

After an on-again, off-again courtship, he married real estate whiz Diane Lokey in 1995. The couple was a fixture on the Houston social scene until his death.

Farb's love of singing continued until the end of his life. His friend Patsy Fourticq recalled Farb's birthday last April, when Diane organized a small party. It went on until 2 in the morning as Harold sang tune after tune, dedicating a few of the most romantic songs to Diane.

Farb also used his wealth to support Houston cultural and medical institutions. He and Diane recently gave a six-figure contribution for adult stem cell research to the Texas Heart Institute.

"He was extremely generous and although he went through some of the economic ups and downs of our city, he certainly landed on his feet and maintained his record of honesty and fair dealing," said Dr. Denton Cooley.

Former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier remembered Farb as an ambitious, high energy person who was "at the same time very soft spoken and easy to get along with."

Lanier thinks that Farb's legacy are the buildings still standing around Houston.

"He built some of the finest apartment buildings in town and was one of the better landlords in town," Lanier said. "That's what people will remember."

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Congregation Emanu El, 1500 Sunset Blvd.